The Trick of Singularity
By
Kurt A. Schauppner
Reviewed
by Greg Gilbert
Available at Raven's Bookstore
69225 29 Palms Highway, Twentynine Palms
The title, The Trick of Singularity,
suggests a point of infinite density, a state of uniqueness, and a place where
physical laws break down; all of which are rightly applied to Schauppner’s
book. For example, the narration is presented in past tenses, a topsy-turvy chronology
wherein the first two-thirds occur in the recent past and the final one-third
in the not-so-recent past, two stories that meet at common point, a singularity
named Nathan Lee.
The passage of time is a character
throughout the story. In the beginning, Nathan Lee is old, and in the end, young.
In both time frames, his proximity to the loss of a loved one is mitigated by
his state of being at the “time.” In the
beginning, the protagonist is referred to as Mr. Lee, a formality that is appropriate for his advanced years. In the book’s
conclusion, earlier in Nathan Lee’s life, he is Nathan, a newsman, a member of
a profession that’s on life support.
The first two-thirds of the book is
set in a senior center, a place where
elders revert to grade school behaviors, where pharmaceuticals are dispensed
like communion wafers, and where different rooms are aligned with the
residents’ stages of decline. This is where we meet the curmudgeonly Mr. Lee
and view the descending arc of his story prior to reading about his earlier
ascending arc in the book’s final third.
In the beginning, which is the conclusion, Mr. Lee’s roommate is The Duke, a solitary figure who is occasionally aware of his advancing dementia. When clear minded, he is wise and insightful, and when he is lost, he is unerringly sweet and described as “the largely safe and asexual and therefore much-loved Mr. Duke.” The person who views the Duke in this kindly manner is, “a faded beauty who reminded Mr. Lee of Margaret Dumont,” a staple in many Marx Brothers movies. Once identified as such, she remains Margaret throughout the story, the reference to Dumont another iteration of time’s relentless passage.
The all-at-one-point subtheme applies also to race. Mr. Lee’s father’s father was Korean and his father’s mother Japanese while Mr. Lee’s mother was “pure German.” Though a blend of races is not unusual in today’s world, it is germane to the story. Mr. Lee thinks of himself as White, even as the tragicomic tone of the first two-thirds of the book is reminiscent of Yiddish humor due to the author’s knack for transforming misery into comedy, albeit, at times, a bit dark.
The
worst days are 100th birthday celebrations. Family members gather,
staff members hang balloons and force hats and other bit of ephemera onto
unwilling heads and into unwilling hands, a curiously-decorated cake is
purchased from the local grocery store, a junior staff member from the local
newspaper is summoned with camera, notepad and wide eyes to record the
spectacle.
A 100 year-old person, usually a
woman because most men have the good sense not to live that long, is dragged
out of her hospital bed, deposited into a wheelchair, wheeled into a dining
room, placed in front of the cake and forced to wear a festive hat that will,
at the end of the day, be thrown into the trash and begin it journey to a
rapidly-overflowing landfill.
Young Nathan Lee is a photojournalist for a newspaper inherited by children who decide that “it would not be fun to run a newspaper,” a reference to Citizen Kane and yellow journalism. One day, Nathan photographs a dying man at the scene of an auto collision, and, as a result, suffers the resentment of the man’s loved ones, a story that parallels the decline of his newspaper and the failing health of his true love. Within the arcs of this section, Lee’s true love is “a joyfully zaftig man in the manner of Jackie Gleason or late in life Orson Welles,” a largeness that anchors young Nathan while sending the book’s younger readers to their search engine of choice.
Nathan’s uniqueness is a point where societal norms break down. He is a multiracial man in a profession that, like his true love, is both candid and dying. He is a gay man in a community that views such as an abomination. A neighbor who has made cookies for her grandchild’s church school bake sale has asked him not to attend because, “Oh, well, it’s at our church school and most of those folks are a little more conservative…” even though “everyone knew how neat and clean gay people were.” Though never didactic, this is a book that contextualizes the lives of its characters within the cultural and political milieu of modern life.
What Kurt Schauppner has provided is a playwright’s novel, a book rich in stage direction, conflicts, and memorable characters. The trick is that the youthful Nathan Lee we meet in the book’s conclusion has yet to become the elder Mr. Lee who we come to know at the beginning of the book. Thus, the final trick of singularity is achieved within the reader, a point where Mr. Lee, young Nathan, and our own mortality become entangled.
A final note: The Trick of Singularity was written and published within our community and, thus, is not the polished gem that multiple editors and publishing teams have scrubbed for a mass market. There is the occasional editing oversight, but this is a substantive and intelligent story by an author of several books, an editor of our local paper, and a neighbor. There are talented authors throughout our high desert and a remarkable little indie publisher, Cholla Needles. When we support them with our patronage, we enrich our sense of community. The Trick of Singularity is a worthy addition to our local canon.
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